Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Why Blackmoor ended up in Mystara

Mystara is a setting that grew out of the merging of various components such as the Known World, the Hollow World and Blackmoor. What these components had in common was that they were all linked to the Classic D&D rules instead of AD&D. But there was already a Blackmoor in the AD&D Greyhawk line. Why would TSR want to present another Blackmoor? In 2012 Frank Mentzer revealed the following:

Apparently, Blackmoor's return was the result of Gary Gygax approaching Arneson. In spite of their differences, Gary must have realized the significance of Blackmoor and also likely believed it could have commerical value. The result were the DA modules.

The DA modules and later also the Gazetteers suggested that Blackmoor existed thousands of years ago. They were vague on its exact location, but seemed to suggest that it was located in the same region as the Known World would later appear. This was problematic from the beginning as locations didnt match up and was made further complicated when the Golden Khan of Ethengar suggested that the Steppes of Ethengar were the North Pole during the Blackmoor Era. Then the Hollow World Boxed Set came out and placed Blackmoor on Skothar, another continent. At the Piazza today, Bruce Heard explains why some of these decisions were made:

As you mentioned, Blackmoor is more closely tied to OD&D and Basic D&D than it is to AD&D, that's why I never minded that it became part of Mystara.

Should it have been its own setting instead? Maybe, but then we end up with setting bloat like AD&D got. Mystara (Including Hollow World and Savage Coast here), Thunder Rift (tied to Mystara, but essentially its own setting) and Pelinore in the Imagine magazines from TSR UK are plenty of published Classic D&D settings if you ask me, and that's not even counting third party stuff that's easily adaptable, like Arduin, Wilderlands, etc.